Committee adds and adopts amendment asking state to allow amortization of nonconforming industrial uses in environmental justice areas

The Minneapolis Intergovernmental Relations Committee on March 25 added and approved an amendment to the city’s 2025 legislative agenda asking the Minnesota Legislature to authorize the city to phase out nonconforming heavy industrial uses in environmental justice areas.

Council President Payne moved the amendment and asked the committee to state its support for legislative authority to amortize nonconforming industrial uses in defined environmental-justice areas; Chair Oreen Choudhury seconded the motion and the committee approved it by voice vote.

Nut graf: The amendment signals the city’s request that the Legislature give Minneapolis a narrowly defined tool to phase out heavy industrial uses that remain in areas no longer zoned for that activity and that are identified as environmental justice areas; proponents said the change would give the city a planning tool to address long-standing local concerns about industrial impacts.

In presenting the amendment, Council President Payne said the measure is “narrowly defined within environmental justice areas” and is intended to provide the city “the tools that we need to really address some of those environmental justice issues.” Payne described constituent concerns in Ward 1 and other older industrial neighborhoods where heavy uses remain from prior zoning eras and where residents have raised environmental and quality-of-life complaints.

Chair Oreen Choudhury moved to second approval of the amendment. There was no substantive floor discussion opposing the proposal recorded in the committee transcript; the chair called for the voice vote and the motion carried. The committee first voted earlier in the meeting to add the amendment to the published agenda as item 2 before taking up the substance; that procedural motion also passed by voice vote.

Decision details: Two related actions were recorded in the meeting minutes and transcript — a procedural vote to add the proposed amendment to the committee agenda, and a subsequent vote to approve the amendment to the 2025 legislative agenda. Both votes were recorded as voice votes with the chair declaring the motion carried. The transcript does not record a roll-call tally of individual yes/no votes.

Ending: With the amendment adopted, the committee concluded business and adjourned. The committee did not record further directions in the transcript about next steps for transmitting the amended legislative agenda to the City Council or to delegation members; staff follow-up is implied but not specified in the record.